Now it's a long weekend, and usually the pickings are slim, but I've checked Kijiji and found no less than 7 pages of garage sales this weekend and so I made my map.
1st Stop - Thorncliffe, I'm off at 8:00 hoping to catch the early worms.
But after a quick ride about the neighborhood I discover that I'm the only one up, and so head back downtown to grab a coffee to go.
By the time I'm back there are a few underway, and a few more setting up.
It's nothing but junk. All junk. Junk junk junk. The best find is a cat tree and house someone has left in an alley by the trash, and while I'm deliberating picking it up (it'll need recovering) I remind myself that I'm not here trash picking today, it's business, and a few more of these useless garage sales later I've abandoned all hope and start heading out to Springbank via Bowness.
Not a thing purchased in Thorncliffe.
All along the way I stop and follow signs, nothing, nothing, nothing. In Bowness there's a couple big ones on the street, again nothing and nothing, one a few pieces of cheap costume jewelry, otherwise nothing. A reuse - recycle store is going out of business, some big concrete planters in the back, open to offers, but at 200lbs apiece I'm too discouraged to dicker or try and load them into the car. The inside of the store is a mess, possibly, if I dug and rummaged, but the water and power has been turned off and the smell of an overused and underflushed toilet puts me off a more thorough search.
And on and on, eventually arriving on Old Banff Coach road, there's a sale out in Springbank that used the word "Antiques", and while usually that's a caution that the prices will be high I just need to rest my eyes, find something half-worthwhile....
I find the sale, one of those telescoping distance roads, "4 KM ahead" signs warn you, then when you've clocked your 4 KM there's another sign "2 KM ahead", and so it goes, Zeno's paradox brought to life, eventually I arrive, antique tools and hurricane lamps, mismatched china and vinegar cruets, the proprietors of the sale discussing the treasures they've already let go (better by far than what remains) ...
From here home, vary the route, more sales, by 1:00 I'm home having spent $6.00 on coffee and $12.00 on garage sale items ($5.00 of which went to a new phone, the last 2 I bought proved not to work...)
An absolutely fruitless day.
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Sunday it's the Hillhurst flea market, the dealers, it would appear, had as rough a go of it as I did, a pair of cufflinks for a dollar, a blue Medalta beanpot, (blue being rare, otherwise I have too many beanpots as it is...).
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All in all it's a no-star garage sale weekend. Time would have been far better spent sleeping in, reading a book, anything but garage saling....